


hotel sheets, brimming with finery

by ofherlionheart



Series: the boo chronicles [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Bending (Avatar TV), Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Museum Curator Zuko, POV Sokka (Avatar), POV Third Person, Physics PhD Candidate Sokka, Weddings, Zukka Week 2021, like it's a lot of sokka just Overthinking scattered with soft things, no beta we die like lu ten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 21:08:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30061572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofherlionheart/pseuds/ofherlionheart
Summary: On a whim, Sokka types out: ‘hey. would u be my fake boyf plus-one for a wedding in two weeks?’ He hits send and doesn’t really regret it because (1) it’s 3am on a Tuesday morning so he doesn’t really have the bandwidth to care (2) he’s actually thought this thing out and (3) he’s armed with arguments.‘what?’He’s too tired to text out a full explanation, so he dials Zuko’s number. The call picks up on the second ring, and Sokka says, “You would be the ultimate flex of a significant other on an ex. You’re, like, the most thoughtful, big-hearted person I know, and you’re beautiful and fashionable and accomplished. You’re going to be world-renowned famous in, like, two years.”Silence stretches for so long Sokka wonders if he misheard the call picking up; then Zuko’s rasp, lifted from a baritone to a tenor by the electronic filter of a phone call, says, “Okay.”—————A sleep-deprived Sokka caves to the impulse to ask Zuko, his close friend of seven years, to be his pretend boyfriend for his ex’s wedding; Zuko is too ride-or-die to consider this a bad idea.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: the boo chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211585
Comments: 48
Kudos: 315
Collections: Zukka





	hotel sheets, brimming with finery

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first attempt to participate in a themed creative week! This is for Day One (which, technically, was yesterday): Fake Dating.
> 
> Title inspired by "[Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ppLBX2YKsQ)" by AUDREY NUNA.

It’s not strange for Sokka to receive a text from Zuko at 3:12 in the morning; what’s strange is that Sokka’s still awake to read it as soon as it comes in.

**_gonna sCReam if i erad 1 more essay by sum1 whos horny for bersani_ **

Sokka snorts, because hey, he’s actually read some Bersani, so he can find Zuko’s theory reference funny instead of insufferably elitist and/or obscure. **_like u wouldn’t kiss bersani’s gravehole_** , he replies, and then, on a whim, also types out: **_hey. would u be my pretend boyf plus-one for a wedding in two weeks?_** He hits send and doesn’t really regret it because (1) it’s 3am on a Tuesday morning so he doesn’t really have the bandwidth to care (2) he’s actually thought this thing out and (3) he’s armed with arguments.

**_what?_ **

He’s too tired to text out a full explanation, so he dials Zuko’s number. The call picks up on the second ring, and Sokka says, “You would be the ultimate flex of a significant other on an ex. You’re, like, the most thoughtful, big-hearted person I know, and you’re beautiful and fashionable and accomplished. You’re going to be world-renowned famous in, like, two years.”

Silence stretches for so long Sokka wonders if he misheard the call picking up; then Zuko’s rasp, lifted from a baritone to a tenor by the electronic filter of a phone call, asks, “Why not Suki?”

Indeed, why not Suki—it’s the first question Sokka asked himself when he saw the professionally done wedding invitation, embossed on high-quality blue cardstock (robin egg blue had always been Zahra’s favorite color), and immediately considered bringing a fake significant other.

There isn’t, like, real animosity between Sokka and Zahra. He just … thinks he could be happier for her at her wedding if he had a fake-date that could be an ego boost when some stranger inevitably goes, _Oh, Sokka? Her ex from when she was in law school?_ He imagines people would care less about the whole rejected-proposal thing if he rolled up with someone absolutely stunning and out of his league.

“Suki and Zahra are almost the same person,” Sokka answers, “so Zahra would just take pity on Suki and shake her head at me. But she’d think you’re wildly out of my league—”

“I’m not.”

“—and thereby infer that I’ve grown as a person since she dumped me, and _then_ she might even question whether walking away from me was the right choice.”

Another pause. “To be clear. Her walking away from you _was_ the right choice. Right?”

Sokka sighs. “Yeah,” he exhales, and he doesn’t elaborate. He’s been talking to Zuko about it since it happened, though with less frequency now. Proposing to your girlfriend and then getting dumped two weeks later _because_ you proposed isn’t exactly a great topic to dwell on.

“Sokka, you aren’t asking me to do this just because there’s a chance you’ll feel a brief sense of victory over someone you’re actually perfectly cordial friends with … are you?”

“No,” Sokka says emphatically. “I’m asking because there’s no one I’d rather have by my side than you.”

A beat of silence, long enough that Sokka almost wishes he’d video called Zuko instead, so he can read his friend’s expressions to figure out what’s running through his thoughts. Eventually, Zuko says, “As emotional support.”

Well, for the purpose of this wedding … “Yes.”

“Okay.”

Sokka blinks. “Okay?”

“You said it’s two weeks from now?”

“Yeah, on Saturday—you’re sure?”

“Why would I say okay if I wasn’t sure?”

Sokka’d expected more of an argument here. He’s had a list of rationalizations and arguments percolating in the back of his head for weeks and Zuko’s just. Already on board. “Great,” he says, tapping his laptop to bring the screen back to life. His data set is still processing; he probably won’t have a generated graph until next morning. Or, technically, later this morning. “Uh, it’s in Montreal. I don’t know what your work schedule is like, but I was planning on taking Friday off to drive up, and then come back on Sunday—”

“Works for me. We can take my car, if you want.”

“Actually—yeah. That’d be great.”

He chews on his lip, wondering if Zuko’s throwing himself into this without thinking it completely through—he has a tendency to do that, sometimes. “The pretend boyfriend thing,” he says. “We don’t—we don’t have to do it. Bottom line, I’d just like it if you were there.”

“Are you backing out?” Zuko asks, and Sokka can hear the grin in his voice. “Let’s do it. I bet we can get her to second-guess herself for at _least_ a second.”

Sokka smiles in spite of himself. Zuko’s quietly a competitive person—he takes on life as if everything is just a series of challenges he’s meant to prove himself against. It’s how he’s risen so quickly in the art world, an assistant curator at only 28 years old. Sokka’s very proud of him; he’s also worried Zuko might burn out way ahead of his time.

“Okay,” he says. He nudges his computer again; still not much progress. “I think I should get to bed. This data set won’t process faster just because I’m watching it.”

“I wondered why you were awake right now.”

“Enjoy the Bersani booty-lickers.”

Zuko sighs heavily, and Sokka snickers. The flip-side of Sokka understanding a theory reference is that he can make cringe-y puns about them.

“Sokka?”

“Yeah?”

“You _have_ grown as a person. Since the stuff with Zahra happened.”

Sokka goes still, as he does whenever Zuko catches him off-guard with a soft-spoken sincerity. It takes a second to get his heart to cooperate again. “Thanks,” he mumbles. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Get some rest.”

The line disconnects, and Sokka’s left nothing but the whirring fan of his laptop.

* * *

Here’s the thing: Sokka’s also partly motivated, masochistically, by a desire for a small taste of what it would be like to date Zuko.

He knows it’s going to be pretend, and whatever, and any embellishments to their friendship will be just that—embellishments—but it’s the closest he’ll ever get to living out the fantasy that sprang up in junior-year Sokka’s mind and has been hibernating in the back of his head for, god, about seven years, now. He knows how to read subtle deflection, he _knows_ when romantic pursuit is not being encouraged, so his brain easily switched tracks, way back when, in the middle of what _he_ thought was a date, but Zuko clearly thought was a we-should-be-friends-let’s-get-to-know-each-other-without-Suki-as-an-intermediary dinner. Yet, after all this time, his brain hasn’t figured out a way to trick his heart into getting with the program, so, yes, you _could_ say that Sokka’s always held a little tiny basically insignificant flame for Zuko.

No one has to know.

“You remembered your passport, right?” he asks Zuko.

Zuko drives with the one-handed confidence of someone who’s mastered the art of personal vehicle navigation in twenty-two different countries around the world, because he _is_ that someone. Sokka will never live down screaming his head off on the Autobahn as Zuko nimbly wove in and out of traffic going at speeds that gave Sokka a heart attack—and while driving manual, not automatic, no less.

He slides an unimpressed look at Sokka before merging into a faster lane. “Yes, Sokka, I remembered my passport.”

Sokka’s fingers drum against his thigh. “Do you think we could smuggle back a bunch of cheese?”

Zuko reaches across the gearshift and grabs Sokka’s agitated fingers. “Sure, if you want to.”

Sokka stares at their joined hands, at the heavy white-gold band around Zuko’s thumb. This feels nice. It looks right, for Zuko’s hand to be holding Sokka’s steady.

Zuko squeezes lightly and lets Sokka go. “It’s not a crime to cross the border to attend a wedding,” he tells Sokka.

“I know you’re trying to be reassuring, or something, but criminality’s never been much of a deterrent to you.”

“Maybe don’t mention that to Border Patrol.”

They cross the border with no issues, just a bit of a wait, because spring weekends are apparently a popular time for New Yorkers to hop the border and hang out in Canada for a brief vacation. From there, it’s only an hour more of driving, time mostly spent mocking the French roadsigns. Sokka has to dive deep into the recesses of his brain for memories of high school French classes; Zuko, hyper-accomplished and highly cultured intellectual he is, flips seamlessly between a flawless Parisian accent and a passable Quebec accent.

There’s only so much mileage they can get out of mocking the language, though, and when Sokka’s nav app tells them they’re fifteen minutes from the hotel in the heart of the city, Sokka clears his throat and asks the question that’s been on his mind since they got into the car six hours ago. “Should we plan a backstory, if people ask?”

A convertible with New York plates cuts them off, and Zuko unleashes a string of Quebecois expletives that’s utterly incomprehensible and hilarious to Sokka. “We already have a backstory,” Zuko says calmly, switching lanes to pull up next to his roadway enemy and flip them off before zipping around a hairpin-precise right turn. “Zahra’s met me, before. She knows we’re friends.”

“She doesn’t know we’re dating. How long do you have to be dating a person before you invite them to a wedding? Six months? A year?”

“Four,” Zuko says decisively. “We’ve already known each other for years.”

Right. They’d have to be pretty serious from the get go, to risk a friendship that’s run so deep their friend groups have fully merged, and it follows that they’d not worry about the implications of bringing their partner to a wedding so early on in a relationship. And if it’s only been four months, no one will expect them to act like a perfectly integrated romantic unit.

“Four,” Sokka agrees. “Okay. What changed? Did we go on a formal date? Or did it just kind of happen? What kind of dates have we gone on? Whose apartment do we spend more time at?”

They stop at a light, and Zuko gives him an amused look. “Do you really want us to work out every detail of a four-month-long fake relationship?”

“I like having a plan,” Sokka protests.

“I know. I also know you overthink things, a lot.”

“But what if people ask questions?”

“Then we can improvise.” The light changes, and Zuko turns to the road again. “Honestly, as long as we hold hands, share some cake, and kiss a few times, no one’s going to question it. The night’s about Zahra and Ajay, remember? No us.”

It takes Sokka a second to remember that Ajay’s the name of Zahra’s hubby-to-be, and another second to register that Zuko just said _kiss a few times_. His heart does that inconvenient temporary-stop thing. He hadn’t known kissing is on the table, and it feels like a very dangerous offer. Shaking his head to himself, he pretends to fiddle with the volume on the stereo. “Actually, I’m the main character in everyone’s narrative,” he quips.

Zuko laughs, and Sokka relaxes with the sound.

It’s almost eleven by the time they check into the high-rise hotel. Zuko’s yawning every ten steps, and Sokka shoulders his bag in spite of his protests. “You drove all the way here,” Sokka says. “Let me do something for you.”

Their room is a cozy little thing of blues and soft grays, and there’s a white gift basket with robin egg blue ribbon waiting for them on the bureau. Zuko immediately heads for the bathroom, leaving Sokka to investigate the basket: two rocks glasses, a trio of honey and jam sample jars from a local Montreal farm, some maple candies, and blue M&Ms with silver As or Zs printed on them.

When Zuko comes out of the bathroom, drops of water still clinging to his chin, Sokka waves one of the rocks glasses at him. “Think I only would have gotten one, if I didn’t bring you?”

“If they budget like rational people, probably yes.”

He’s getting that grumpy-tired Zuko voice, so Sokka leaves him be, taking the bathroom to get ready for bed.

When he reemerges, Zuko’s in his sleepwear and already burrowed in the blankets on the right side of the bed. Sokka climbs in quietly and jumps when Zuko asks, “What time do we need to leave for the church?”

“Fuck,” Sokka whispers, clutching at his chest. “I thought you were asleep.”

Zuko chuckles into his pillow as Sokka settles down for real. “Scaredy-cat,” he mumbles, sneaking a hand out of the blankets to poke Sokka’s nose.

It’s less of a poke and more of a general swipe at Sokka’s face; Sokka catches his hand and places it on the pillow next to Zuko’s face. “You’re wiped, man,” he says.

“Mmph.”

“Should’ve let me drive part of the way.”

“I didn’t mind.”

But that’s just Zuko, isn’t it? Never complaining about doing things for other people, about going a hundred miles out of his way to help people out. He sometimes gripes about doing things for Azula, but that doesn’t keep him from helping his sister with whatever insane thing she’s requested this time. Sokka should be learning by Zuko’s example.

“Ceremony starts at ten,” he says. “I’ll wake you at eight, okay?”

“Mmkay. G’night.”

“Good night, boo.”

Zuko laughs. A minute later, he’s breathing deep and even, already fast asleep. Sokka has to lay awake for much longer before his body finally calms enough to let him follow suit.

* * *

Zahra looks gorgeous in her mermaid-cut lace dress, her veil trailing several yards behind her, and Sokka doesn’t blame the groom for tearing up when she reaches him at the altar. Sokka eventually cries, too—he’s always had a weakness for wedding vows. When the tears first come, Zuko grabs his hand, and Sokka’s touched by the gesture of comfort until he looks over and sees the amused tilt to Zuko’s lips. He knows Zuko will try to make fun of him for this, later; too bad Sokka’s too in touch with his emotions and masculinity to be ashamed of his tears.

After the ceremony, there’s a casual lunch arranged at a farm-to-table restaurant a few blocks away. It’s nice enough out that they decline the hired cars shuttling wedding guests from one location to the next in favor of walking, and Sokka’s entertained by how many people double take at the two of them walking down the sideway. He brazenly refused to let go of Zuko’s hand since the vows, but he thinks the open stares are less about the public display of queer affection than they are about how striking they look in their suits.

Sokka prides himself on being able to clean up pretty well, particularly for a physics PhD student who wants to research and teach university courses for the rest of his life, but he knows he doesn’t hold a candle to Zuko—especially when Zuko _tries_. He always has a mysterious air of glamor, just from having grown up around the globe and being inundated in the art world since his late teens, and it doesn’t hurt, at times like this, that he’s best friends with a world-renowned Vietnamese-Chinese fashion designer. Mai picked out Sokka’s tie for today, too, but she’s been dressing Zuko for important art world events for years, and every piece she chooses for Zuko looks like it’s been made for him—and sometimes, they indeed have.

Right now, he’s wearing a textured gray suit with a black, collarless button-up. It’s the perfect height to let the edge of the tattoo that spreads across his right shoulder blade peek over the edge of the fabric; it makes Sokka feel some sort of way to know what the full tattoo looks like (it’s a likeness of one of the _nang yai_ puppets his mother made, after Zuko and Ursa reconciled a few years back) while anyone else can only wonder what lies beneath the smooth fabric that screams _money_.

At lunch, Sokka stuffs himself with the buffet food in anticipation of drinking much alcohol at the reception tonight. There’s already champagne at lunch, and he’s buzzed enough within an hour to giggle every time Zuko takes a small sip from his glass and wrinkles his nose at the carbonation.

While Sokka knows some of Zahra’s friends and chatters excitedly with them, as if he hasn’t been minimizing contact for years because it’s embarrassing to be known as _Oh,_ that _really lovesick ex_ , he doesn’t know most of the other guests—not that that’s ever stopped him from making fast friends. He and Zuko accidentally wade into a knot of the groom’s friends, and they find out he works in finance and, somehow, genuinely loves it.

When they disentangle from that diverse yet still fratty group, Sokka leans into Zuko and mutters, “I can’t believe Zahra married a corporate _snake_.”

“At least he isn’t white,” Zuko replies.

“… Fuck. I’ll drink to that.”

Finally, the newlyweds arrive with their families, done with this round of photos, and the restaurant fills with cheering. Zahra’s veil has been full removed, but the tiara remains, sitting on her short-cropped, tight curls. When she and Sokka had been dating, she’d had an afro, and while it had suited her then—as it would still suit her now—this shorter style makes her high cheek bones stand out even more and draws attention to her large, glittering brown eyes, to her radiant smile.

“She’s so happy,” Sokka says, the observation slipping out of him. And he’s happy that she’s happy, he’s always happy to see other people in love—he’s been an avid fan of romcoms since age ten for a _reason_ —but there’s still an ache in his chest that persists in asking him, insidiously, _Why weren’t you enough?_

An arm slips around Sokka’s waist, and when he looks over at Zuko, he’s relieved to see the understand in his face. He doesn’t have to explain the twist of emotions crowding against his throat; he only has to throw an arm around Zuko’s shoulders, and Zuko tucks himself against Sokka’s side, supporting him wordlessly, unwaveringly.

Grand entrance over, the crowd goes back to eating and mingling. They end up meeting a cousin of Ajay who’s a professor of media studies at a university in Vancouver, and when she realizes who Zuko is, they launch into a conversation that features mostly name-dropping and half-gestures to articles Sokka’s never heard of, much less read. Sokka takes the moment to lean back and sip prettily on his champagne. He doesn’t realize his thumb has started to absently rub over Zuko’s shoulder until Zuko shifts his weight and subtly nudges his elbow into Sokka’s side.

Sokka stops. “Sorry,” he says, returning to earth, and Zuko says, “Sonya asked how we know the couple.”

Oh. The nudge wasn’t about the caressing. Also, Zuko’s letting him decide how to describe the mess that’s his presence at this wedding. “I’m friends with Zahra,” Sokka says, smiling in a way he hopes apologies for having tuned out of this conversation.

They eventually part ways, but not before Zuko’s put his contact information into Sonya’s phone to later follow up about Zuko giving a guest lecture for her undergraduate course about Southeast Asian cinema. When Sonya drifts off, Sokka shakes his head. “You’re the consummate networker,” he says.

Zuko tilts his head up to Sokka, a teasing smile curling his lips. “Sorry my attention wasn’t fully on you, _boo_.”

Sokka’s stomach flips. He’s been jokingly calling Zuko _boo_ for years, because—well, because boo works for Zuko in an incongruous way that doesn’t work for anyone else Sokka knows. This is certainly the first time Zuko’s ever called him boo, and Sokka, as a grown ass man, hates how much he loves it.

“Sokka!”

He tears his eyes from Zuko, cheeks flaming, to see Zahra approaching them, Ajay trailing behind her. The inevitable has arrived: greeting the woman who, only three years ago, stomped flat his hopeful little heart by saying, _I don’t think I’ll be ready for marriage for a long time, Sokka. I might never want to get married. So … I think, for the sake of not misleading you, maybe we should stop seeing each other_.

“Zahra!” he cries, smiling broadly and ignoring the whispers of _not enough_.

She still uses the same perfume as three years ago, and her tight hug is familiar, too. “Congratulations a hundred, thousand times,” Sokka tells the top of her head. “You look absolutely radiant.”

Zahra laughs, and when she lets go of him, she melts back into Ajay’s casual embrace, as if she’s meant to be there. They look great together. “I’m so glad you were able to make it,” she says. “And you brought Zuko!”

She glances between them meaningfully, a question in her raised eyebrow that Sokka doesn’t know how to answer, but, somehow, Zuko does: he gives Zahra an uncharacteristically shy smile and stretches to press a brief kiss to Sokka’s cheek. “He convinced me to take a day off work to make it up here,” Zuko says, curling a hand over Sokka’s shoulder.

There’s no missing the way Zahra blinks twice and slips into her calculating-lawyer face, glancing at their hands—no ring, aside from the one on Zuko’s thumb—but then her smile is back and, impossibly, brighter and warmer than before. “I had a feeling,” she says vaguely, winking at Zuko, and then she twists to look at Ajay. “Honey, this is Sokka and Zuko. I’ve told you about them.”

They shake hands, and Ajay doesn’t actually seem like a snake, just a man with an unfortunate love for numbers. Zuko’s just politely inquired about Ajay’s work—which shows he’s really laying it on thick, because Zuko isn’t the polite-inquiry type—when Zahra spots someone and jumps. “Oh, babe, Aunt Rochelle,” she says. She smiles apologetically at Sokka and Zuko. “We need to say hi to her, since she has to leave before the reception. But we’ll catch up later, yeah?”

“Of course,” Sokka says, and then the newlyweds are gone, disappearing into the crowd.

A weight leaves his shoulders, and Zuko squeezes his arm. “That wasn’t bad,” Zuko says.

A wheezing laugh escapes Sokka. “I can’t believe you asked a finance guy about his work.”

“What else am I supposed to ask my boyfriend’s ex’s new husband?”

Sokka’s still replaying the exchange in his head. “And why did she _wink_ at you?”

Zuko gives an undignified snort, shaking his head, and it makes Sokka laugh harder, incredulous about how easy this first in-person hello in years has been. “I don’t know,” Zuko says. “But I think we made her think twice.”

* * *

After lunch, they go back to their hotel room, where Zuko takes a cat nap. Sokka’s too antsy to rest, still energized by the coffee at breakfast and champagne at lunch, so he slips out and finds a cheese shop where he buys as much cheese as he can fit into his bag and then treats himself to a double-shot latte. If he’s too wired to sleep now, he might as well make sure he’s wired enough to not crash until the late in the evening.

He finds that all the anxiety he had about seeing Zahra again—at her wedding, no less—has dissipated, made manageable by Zuko. How does he do it? Zuko himself is constantly a chaotic mess of frenetic energy, juggling too many projects in and outside of work at once and stretching himself so thin that it’s weirder to see him _without_ deep shadows under his eyes. And yet he always knows exactly what to do to smooth out the rough bumps in Sokka’s life, to soften the edges of Sokka’s overactive brain. If he could, Sokka would built monuments to Zuko and how incredible a person he is. Sokka’s no artist, but he’d find a way to outdo Michelangelo’s _David_ , dammit. It’d be but a fraction of what Zuko deserves.

It occurs to him, as he treks back to the hotel, that he’s always been more than a little gone on his friend.

When he reaches their room, Zuko’s already up and re-dressing, his hair still mussed from his nap. His smile when he sees Sokka is automatic, and Sokka has to grip his cheeses tightly to keep from doing something stupid, like testing out one of those _kiss a few times_ when there’s no one around to witness them.

“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to release the cheeses,” Zuko says in a dumb fucking voice.

“Is that your Border Patrol impression?” Sokka fires back. “How is your Quebecois accent in French better than your Canadian accent in English?”

Zuko shrugs, smiling goofily, and Sokka goes to hide in the bathroom.

The reception is in a ballroom that’s halfway up the high-rise and opens up onto a large, torch-lit balcony. The blue and white theme carries through here, and Zuko makes a happy noise at discovering that the open bar has a wide range of whiskeys and a couple types of soju available. “I like how finance bros drink,” Zuko tells Sokka, his cheeks already tinged a splotchy pink. Sokka presses his nose against the side of Zuko’s face, wishing he could kiss him.

There are drinks, and drinks, and then food and toasts, and finally the first dance; after that, the wedding planner sits back and lets the party take its own reins, for a while. One of Zahra’s bridesmaids, Sadie—who secretly told Sokka three years ago that she thought Zahra was a little bit of an idiot, for dumping Sokka like that, but ultimately thought Zahra and Sokka’s lives would diverge too much in the long run for anything to work out—grabs Sokka and starts parading him around the ballroom and balcony, plying him with drinks as she introduces and reintroduces him to other guests at the party.

It takes him a stupidly long time to realize what Sadie’s doing, and while he appreciates the gesture of her trying to set him up at a wedding that likely would’ve emotionally fucked him up if Zuko weren’t here with him, it’s with stunning clarity that Sokka realizes he would rather fall asleep to a solid platonic cuddle with Zuko than after a round of nuptial-inspired sex with a stranger. He starts looking around for Zuko, but the man is no where to be seen in the ballroom.

Sadie tugs on Sokka’s shirtsleeve—he lost track of his jacket some time ago—and he tunes in to the redheaded woman he’s being introduced to. “Sokka, this is Maeve,” Sadie shouts over the music of the live band.

Before Sokka can say hi, Maeve’s eyes widen. “Oh! _You’re_ Sokka,” she says and then slaps a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my god. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Sokka puts on a smile, graciously ignoring Sadie shooting vicious _you-fucked-up_ looks at Maeve. “No worries,” he says, “I think most people tonight have wanted to react like that.”

“I mean, I’ve also heard great things about you!”

Sadie grabs Maeve’s half-finished wine glass, dumps its alcoholic content into an abandoned whiskey tumbler, and refills the glass with ice water. “Drink this,” she orders Maeve and then herds Sokka away. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “Everyone knows that you and Zahra are chill, but—”

“It’s fine,” Sokka cuts in. “Really. I appreciate what you’re doing, here—”

“Oh! There’s Jiahao. You’ve _gotta_ meet him—he owns a piercing shop in the Lower East Side.”

Her acrylics dig into his arm as she surges onto the balcony, a woman on a mission. “Sadie—”

“Sokka!”

They both stop in their tracks.

 _There’s_ Zuko, abandoning a group of what looks like Ajay’s coworkers—how did Zuko end up with the finance bros again?—to stride across the balcony, the flickering light of the torches making otherworldly, living art of the sharp lines of his cheekbones, the soft curve of his brow and lip. His face is still alcohol-flushed, but he’s steady on his feet as he beelines for Sokka, a hand rising to wrap around the back of Sokka’s neck as he tilts his head up to kiss Sokka.

He’s _kissing_ Sokka.

It’s a real kiss, too, open-mouthed and pulling at Sokka’s lower lip. Sokka drops anything he might have been holding so he can hold Zuko instead, grabbing at his waist and giving as good as he gets. He thinks something shatters and that Sadie shrieks, but he doesn’t care—not when he bites Zuko’s lip (because he remembers with crystal clarity that one time Zuko admitted he liked a hint of teeth) and Zuko inhales sharply at the sensation.

It’s Zuko who pulls away, with one last peck at the corner of Sokka’s mouth, but he doesn’t leave the circle of Sokka’s arms. “Was looking for you,” Zuko says, earnestly, and what would Sokka do if Zuko was actually his boyfriend? Kiss him again, shortly, so he does just that, tasting the whiskey on Zuko’s breath.

“Sorry,” Sokka says, and he _is_ sorry he was away for so long. “Sadie was introducing me to some friends.”

They turn in unison to Sadie, who looks flabbergasted but recovers quickly. “Zuko—hi,” she says. “Uh. We’ve met, right? You’re Sokka’s—”

“Boyfriend,” Zuko says. “Yes.”

 _Boyfriend_ , Sadie mouths. “Incredible,” she says. “Um, I’m going to the bathroom to get the old-fashioned off my legs—”

Sokka looks down, sees a shattered tumbler, and realizes he must have broke that in his haste to get his hands on Zuko. “Oh, shit,” he says, and Zuko laughs into the curve of his neck. “Sorry.”

“Don’t even worry about it.”

She backs away with a wave, and Zuko snickers. “Introducing you to some friends, huh?”

Sokka straightens Zuko’s collar; he popped open his top two buttons, at some point. “In her defense, she didn’t seem to know about us.”

Zuko glances at the shattered glass at their feet. “Want to replace that drink?”

He’s more drunk off Zuko’s touch than anything he’s ingested so far this evening. “Nah. Let’s dance.”

“No—”

“C’mon, none of your pretentious art friends are here to judge you. Dance!” He tweaks Zuko’s nose, and Zuko wrinkles it in response. “For me.”

Zuko furrows his brow and purses his lips—his halfway-inebriated thinking face—and then pulls Sokka back into the ballroom.

They dance, poorly, to the live band until the cake cutting is called, and they share a slice before returning to the floor. At one point, a bunch of Ajay’s finances buddies convince them to take a couple shots with them, and soon after that, Zuko excuses himself for the bathroom. “Small bladder, boo,” Sokka says, and Zuko only smiles foolishly and bonks his forehead against Sokka’s before leaving.

Alone, Sokka goes to the balcony to give his feet a rest and nurse an old fashioned. He settles on a bench overlooking the city and watches the people swarm like ants on the streets below, carrying out their own lives that Sokka doesn’t know anything about.

“There you are.”

Sokka turns and is surprised to see Zahra. She’d changed into a different dress for the reception, a long-sleeved number that gently hugs her figure, ends at the knee, and has next to no back. The mini tiara from her veil still sits on her curls. “Hi,” Sokka says dumbly, scooting over to make room on the bench.

She sits down next to him, crossing her ankles neatly and tucking her legs onto the bench seat. “You and Zuko, huh?”

Sokka smiles, because he doesn’t know what to say. Zuko’s always been more comfortable with improvising, even if he isn’t always good at it; Sokka lives by his plans.

“Sokka, I want to apologize.”

Sokka straightens up. “What? Why?”

She chews on her lip, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. “I really didn’t handle … what happened, between us, well. I was lying to both of us.”

Sokka runs the tip of his finger around the glass in his hand. “It’s okay,” he says. “We were young. Still figuring ourselves out.”

“I know,” she agrees. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t shitty, and I couldn’t’ve done better. Or that I don’t owe an apology.” She inhales steadily. “I was scared, Sokka, so I was reactive, instead of considerate.”

Sokka frowns. He’s always assumed that Zahra truly never saw marriage in her future, or at least that he’d been a bit crazy, come on too strong, and thereby driven her away. He never though she’d been … “Scared?” he echoes.

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to care for you in the way you needed,” she says. “Not without sacrificing other things that were also important to me.”

Sokka’s eyes widen—has he gone his entire life not realizing he’s a needy person?—but Zahra catches his panic. “It’s not you!” she rushes to explain. “I’m—I’m not an attentive person, Sokka. If I were, I probably would have realized that you were going to … do what you did. But I’m not, and—Sokka, do you understand? We both live so deep in our own heads, like all the time. If something’s up with Ajay, he has to tell me, in very plain words, that something’s wrong before I get it through my head that he needs help. I’m not good at expressing myself like that. But Ajay helps me read my own signs and find my own words.”

Silence expands, but Sokka lets it be, carefully absorbing her words. He thought that he’d understood everything there was to understand about their relationship, and why it hadn’t worked out, but this perspective—it _does_ put things in a new light.

He lifts his head to meet her gaze. “Yeah. I think I understand.”

Relief washes across her face, and Sokka feels his lips curl into a reflexive smile. “Thank you,” he says, and she shakes her head.

“Thank _you_ ,” she says. She uncurls her legs and straightens her skirt. “I need to go—last dance is happening soon.” She stands and caresses his cheek. “You know that you and Zuko always have a place to crash at if you come to Montreal, yes?”

Sokka nods, chest tightening at the thought of a _him and Zuko_. “Enjoy that dance,” he says.

He watches her go, spinning gracefully into Ajay’s waiting arms, and feels settled.

When his drink is finished, he wanders back into the ballroom, searching for Zuko. He thinks the caffeine is finally starting to leave his system; his limbs feel heavy, his head like its floating on a cloud.

He’s startled by a hand taking his and interlacing their fingers, and he looks over to see the man he was looking for, both of their jackets slung over one of his shoulders. “Hi,” Sokka says.

Zuko takes one look at him and asks, “Time to turn in?”

Sokka nods, something suddenly caught in his throat. _Attentive_. Pulling the thoughts and feelings out of Sokka’s head before Sokka even voices them.

Back at the room, Sokka strips gracelessly and takes a brief, hot shower, hoping to steam some of the alcohol out of his system. When he comes out of the bathroom, Zuko’s neatly hung Sokka’s clothes beside his own, and he sits on the edge of the bed in a hotel bathrobe.

“Thanks,” Sokka says, and Zuko squeezes his shoulder as he passes to the bathroom.

He crawls into bed and lets his mind build out the little fantasy that he’s indulging in this weekend. He can now add to the pretend world in which he’s dating Zuko the real memory of Zuko kissing him, of Zuko gasping against his lips. He imagines road-tripping up to Montreal again, this time with Zuko holding his hand the entire ride, to visit Zahra and Ajay. His mind’s eye paints pictures of dinner parties, of walks around all the cities around the world that Zuko’s talked about, of lazy naps in the middle of sunny afternoons in an apartment they call theirs.

The bathroom door opens, and Sokka lets the fantasy fade.

When the mattress dips, Sokka opens his eyes. Zuko smells like the mint of Sokka’s toothpaste—he’d forgotten to pack his own—and he surprises Sokka by crawling right up into Sokka’s space, sinking down the mattress until the sheets cover his head and he can tuck his face into Sokka’s chest.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Sokka whispers.

Zuko hums. “Thanks for the invite. I had fun.”

Making small talk with strangers and playing nice with finance industry lackeys? Sokka snorts, and he receives a sharp squeeze of his waist in response. “I mean it,” Zuko says. “I enjoyed being with you.”

There’s that sincerity, spilling so easily from Zuko’s lips and making Sokka’s heart stumble. Easy, though, doesn’t mean careless, and Sokka knows that Zuko’s always so deliberate with his words. There’s something about what he’s just said, something that Sokka’s incapable of grasping right now, when he’s balanced on the edge of sleep and Zuko’s fingers are tracing somnolent patterns over his skin.

He feels like he should respond, but his heart is still in his throat, so he settles for lifting an arm and carefully dropping it around Zuko, splaying his fingers over the expanse of his upper back. It only takes a small movement to press a kiss to the top of Zuko’s head, and then, with his next breath, he drifts off to sleep.

* * *

He wakes at an ungodly hour in the morning to the sun streaming through the windowswhose blinds they forgot to shut last night, and once he’s awake, the pressure on his bladder comes roaring to the forefront of his mind. Groaning quietly, he twists and rolls his way out of Zuko’s tangle of limbs and stumbles to the bathroom.

Under the harsh white light, he discovers crease marks on his left cheek and a disgustingly tacky mouth. As much as he’d like to fall back into bed to catch a few more winks, his discomfort wins out, and he blearily relieves himself and then starts brushing his teeth.

It’s at this point that Zuko comes in, bumping into the door frame and rubbing his eyes. One of his fingers begins to absently scratch at his scar; Sokka gently pulls it away and then leaves the bathroom to give Zuko his privacy.

When he’s done, Sokka expects Zuko to head straight for the bed again—Zuko’s never a morning person when he doesn’t have to be—but instead he lingers in the doorway to watch Sokka rinse his mouth and splash some water on his face. He uses one of the plush hand towels to dry himself, and his face is buried in the cloth when Zuko rasps, “The wedding’s over.”

He has one hell of a morning voice, but knowing this fact is different from being able to experience it like a normal person. “Yeah,” Sokka says into the towel.

He can’t hide forever, though, and he drops his hands to meet Zuko’s gaze burning into his face through the mirror. “So I’m no longer your pretend boyfriend.”

Sokka swallows and turns around.

They’re not really going to see anyone, today, and definitely not Zahra and Ajay. Most sane people won’t bother traveling until the afternoon, and if both of them are already up, Zuko will likely want to hit the road, soon. There’s no one left to pretend for; Sokka’s brief fantasy has come to its natural end.

“Yeah,” he agrees, grounding his palms into the granite on either side of him.

Zuko nods. “Okay.”

He moves forward, and Sokka realizes he must be going for his toothpaste. He starts to slide out of the way, and he’s not expecting Zuko’s hand to catch him by the hip, or for his foot to step between Sokka’s, gently trapping Sokka in place.

Sokka looks up. His heart does a fucking flip at the expression on Zuko’s face. “This, right now,” Zuko says. “Is it real?”

 _Context_ , Sokka’s brain helpfully supplies in a voice that sounds scarily like Zuko’s. _It’s impossible to communicate clearly without first establishing an agreed upon context_. It’s a quote from one of Zuko’s articles, Sokka’s pretty sure. He reads all of them, even if he only understands maybe half of them.

Sokka’s carried out an entire life in the safety of a fantasy, one that he got to play-act yesterday. Was it everything he had imagined? No. It was more, because there’s only so much that his imagination can hold. Life cannot be experienced from within the limits of the self.

“This is real,” he agrees.

For a breath, they’re both still, bound a moment longer by the dreaded futures that exist only in their own minds; then Zuko shifts forward, and Sokka ducks down to meet him sooner.

It’s a kiss to remember, from the cool granite digging into the back of his thighs to the taste of Zuko’s morning breath. He lightly drags his fingertips down the bare skin of Zuko’s back, and Zuko shudders against him, making a soft noise that’s quickly swallowed by Sokka’s lips but will be etched in his memory forever. He thinks he could kiss Zuko forever, until Zuko pulls away to mouth a line down Sokka’s neck and onto his shoulder, and then he thinks he could let Zuko put his mouth on him for forever.

When Zuko returns to his lips, it’s a quick peck, and Sokka opens his eyes to a warm smile. “My mouth feels gross,” he says, apology in his tone. “Wait for me in bed?”

Sokka hugs him close, inhaling deeply. “I’d wait for you anywhere.”

Zuko snorts, shoving Sokka’s face away from his neck, and Sokka laughs.

* * *

They leave around noon and successfully pass through Border Patrol by two. “Congrats,” Zuko deadpans, merging into a faster lane. “You’re a criminal.”

Sokka grins. He holds his hand open over the gearshift, and Zuko immediately laces his fingers through Sokka’s, eyes not even wavering from the road. “You’re already a terrible influence on me, boo,” Sokka teases.

The smile he receives is amused and fond all at once, and Sokka raises their joined hands to kiss each of Zuko’s knuckles. “You’re a sap.”

“Yeah, but you love it.”

He catches his slip the moment it passes his tongue, and he freezes with his lips hovering over Zuko’s pinky finger, wondering how he can backtrack and explain that he meant that, like, platonically, but he would also be very excited about one day meaning it romantically, but _also_ , there’s no rush! And Zuko doesn’t have to respond, and they can just forget it even happened—

But Zuko—steady, sure, and ride-or-die in a way Sokka’s only just beginning to know—simply squeezes his hand and says, “Yeah. I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr! @[ofherlionheart](https://ofherlionheart.tumblr.com)


End file.
